Investigating the Behavior of a Griffith Crack at the Interface between Isotropic and Orthotropic Elastic Half-Planes for the Opening Crack Mode

Abstract

In this paper, the behavior of an interface crack between isotropic and orthotropic elastic half-planes subjected to a uniform tension is investigated by use of the Schmidt method under the assumption that the effect of the crack surface overlapping very near the crack tips is negligible and there is a sufficiently large component of mode-I loading so that the crack essentially remains opening. The upper half-plane is isotropic elastic materials and the lower half-plane is orthotropic composite materials. By use of the Fourier transform, the problem can be solved with the help of two pairs of dual integral equations in which the unknown variables are the jumps of the displacements across the crack surfaces. Numerical examples are provided for the stress intensity factor of the cracks. Here, we just give an approach to solve the problem of the interface crack. As in a special case, we also give solutions of the ordinary crack in homogeneous materials and of the interface crack between two dissimilar isotropic materials. These solutions have been compared with each other.